Birdcamp May Close :(

I found Birdcamp (and at the same time, a deep love for birds) when I lived in NYC. I still dream about walking in the door: the bright yellow walls, all the neon toys hanging from the ceiling like jungle vines, and the din of HELLO!s and BAWK!s and PEEP!s and RAWK!s.

Brian taught me EVERYTHING about birds, sometimes while trimming the nails of a giant scarlet macaw chewing on his shirt collar.

"Do birds need their beaks trimmed?" I asked.

"Not unless they've got a shitty diet. A bird could drop dead in your hand just from the stress of it, and I'm very, very good at it," he said, which I believed.

I asked him about cockatoos. "We don't sell 'em. They're far too intelligent and demanding. It'd be like having a super smart toddler with anger management issues that never matured and lived to be 100."

Roz lived around the corner from me (Hi, Roz!). I think I even dog sat her five (six?) Chihuahuas!

Sometimes I'd walk all the way up from 14th street just to hang out. I could never be sad there. It was heaven.

Birdcamp Could Close. People Are Panicking

"The bottom of my stomach fell out," one bird owner said of the news. "Not many people will take a Macaw." Justin Marshall receives a small beak-bump from his ever engaging and comical Quaker Parrot, Chicken. Credit... Jose A. Alvarado Jr.

Jennifer L. KnoxComment